Still no CR amendment deal - House budget votes today - WRDA mark-up the dawning of a new friendship? - CEOs vow no flight cuts after merger

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THE LEDE — Budgetary: It’s a number-heavy week on Capitol Hill, full of line items and massive legislative texts. The House votes today on Paul Ryan’s budget and several alternatives, including ones from the Congressional Black Caucus and House Democrats, both of which have boosts in transpo spending but will fail on the floor. The Senate hopes to move on to its budget resolution after finishing work on the CR. Now about that CR...

CR-azy lull: The Senate spent most of Tuesday in quorum calls as Republicans argued for votes on their amendments and Democrats warned of a weekend session to deal with the budget after the CR is finished. Jerry Moran vowed to slow the CR if he doesn’t get a vote on his proposal to keep air traffic control towers open, saying he’d object to any UC requests to bring up the budget as the CR cloture clock ticks down. “It’s not my nature to be an obstructionist,” Moran said on the floor. “This is an amendment that matters greatly.” The Senate still hasn’t reached an amendment agreement and is scheduled for procedural votes this morning. At the latest, it appears the Senate will pass its bill to avert a government shutdown on Thursday morning, then move to the budget. The House would likely then pick up the Senate CR before recessing for two weeks. Who but David Rogers to give you the backstory: http://politi.co/YpCj0R

House budget scored: House T&I Democrats unveiled a new CBO score of the highway and transit spending levels under Paul Ryan’s budget. The findings aren’t pretty for the construction industry: highway ob-lims would be just $100 million in fiscal 2015 and the transit figure would be $1 billion in fiscal 2015. Both are drastically lower than what the programs need to function. The score shows the highway account climbing back to $41.4 billion in fiscal 2017; the transit account would be back to $7.8 billion. Pros get the CBO chart: http://politico.pro/10e56sT

INSERT WRDA PUN HERE: The Senate EPW Committee marks up its bipartisan WRDA bill today — and some senators hope that’s not the end of the story. Rank-and-file senators have been talking up the bill to Majority Leader Harry Reid. EPW Chair Barbara Boxer has talked to Reid about bringing it to the floor this spring and thinks it could come up after gun legislation in April — Reid said as much in Senate lunches. And Majority Whip Dick Durbin says both he and Reid are on board. There’s another factor favoring quick floor action on the bill: It’s been in the works since the last Congress. Boxer floated a draft in late 2012 to get the conversation going among senators, and she has since added language intended to attract a diverse group of supporters and her new ranking member, David Vitter. Scott and Burgess break it all down in today’s POLITICO paper or right here: http://politi.co/11e6WZO

NEWISH FACE: Jim Billimoria is joining Team Shuster as T&I’s new communications director. Jim worked previously for Dave Camp on Ways and Means. MT welcomes you.

“Wolf headed conjurer in the crossroads …” http://bit.ly/15Y3Lb6 (MT note: Songwriter Jason Molina passed away last weekend at the age of 39.)

BOXER AND VITTER — Best buds? MT wrote a lot about the glowing words EPW’s Boxer and Jim Inhofe had for each other during last year’s transpo bill debate. It looks like the love is contagious — Boxer and her new ranking member, Vitter, are off to a good start in their working relationship, a “strange, unusual marriage,” Reid said. “I’m brand new to this role,” Vitter said Tuesday. “I’m very much following the relationship and lead of Barbara Boxer and Jim Inhofe, my predecessor,” said Vitter, who also predicted “bipartisan, if not unanimous support” for the WRDA bill in today’s markup. Boxer is on board with the bipartisan bonhomie: “Liberals and moderates and conservatives all agree you can’t have a great country if you can’t move goods and can’t move people,” she said. That could be good news for the surface transportation bill, Burgess reports for Pros: http://politico.pro/14auMKo

Bonus Vitter on transpo funding: Vitter offered reporters a peek at how he wants to get “the highway program on stable footing.” He said his conservative principles dictate that he wants to reform the trust fund in “a tax neutral way for middle class families.” Vitter called it a “big challenge,” but isn’t everything in Congress?

** A message from the American Society of Civil Engineers: U.S. infrastructure earned an overall grade of D+ in the 2013Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. ASCE members are on Capitol Hill today talking about raising the grades. Download the free app at www.infrastructurereportcard.org. **

WAIT A YEAR: More than 170 contract towers are up for closure on April 7 unless Congress acts, but the 49 federally staffed towers on the FAA's potential closure list won't be shuttered for a long time yet. NATCA’s Doug Church said the FAA has to give unionized controllers a full year's notice before they plan to close a FAA facility, and so far that hasn't happened. But controllers will still be subject to furloughs of at least one day per pay period through the end of the fiscal year, starting April 21.

MERGE RECORDS: American Airlines and US Airways assured lawmakers that they have no plans to scrap service anywhere under their planned merger — unless DOJ forces them to give up flights at Congress's favorite airport. The CEOs of the merging airlines repeatedly told senators at a Senate Judiciary panel hearing that there are no plans to cut back service at small or medium airports in their states — but they said that if the newly merged entity has to divest some of its flights at Reagan National Airport, the most convenient airport to the Capitol, it could mean the loss of flights to some of the smaller communities senators are seeking to protect. Kathryn has more for Pros: http://politico.pro/ZYiAXl

Commerce hearing today: Senate Commerce’s aviation panel will hold a hearing today on the FAA’s safety progress, but don’t be fooled — there’s going to be a lot of Boeing Dreamliner battery fire talk. Aviation Chair Maria Cantwell told MT she expects “it will come up a lot” — as do we.

BLUMENAUER A ‘NO’ ON DOT: The Oregon congressman told C-SPAN he’s not interested in succeeding Ray LaHood at the job, adding that he wants LaHood to stay for as long as he can and doesn’t want anyone “breathing down [LaHood’s] neck.”

INDIANA JONES ON THE HILL: Actor and pilot Harrison Ford told lawmakers on Tuesday that a per-flight fee “has some serious problems.” Speaking at a General Aviation Caucus meeting, Ford said that once the funding mechanism is created, it will be hard for lawmakers not to increase fees when additional revenue is needed. “We'll have to create a bureaucracy to collect it,” he said, noting that a number of major aviation groups support a fuel tax increase as an alternative. The per-flight fee “will prove not to be efficient, not to be cost-effective,” he said.

RESPECT: We wanted to take a moment to recognize the good work from Examiner transportation reporters Kytja Weir and Liz Essley — who will be looking for new jobs in June. Thanks for all your good Metro and MWAA coverage. MT will miss it.

THE COUNTDOWN: Sequestration has been in effect for 20 days and it’s been 50 days since Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced his departure. DOT funding runs out in eight days, passenger rail policy runs out in 195 days, surface transportation policy in 563 days and FAA policy in 925 days. The mid-term elections are in 594 days.

CABOOSE — Super Metro: Self-proclaimed geek Dave Delisle has drafted a map of the D.C. Metro system in the style of Super Mario Brothers 3, a classic Nintendo game that holds a place in MT’s heart. Check it out: http://bit.ly/1380qIV

** A message from the American Society of Civil Engineers: Think the Report Card is all bad news? Think again. ASCE’s 2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure shows that we can make progress on raising the grades. Look for key solutions and infrastructure success stories for every state at www.infrastructurereportcard.org. And in spite of the poor overall grade of D+, six grades improved: roads, bridges, rail, solid waste, and drinking and wastewater systems. Why? In sectors where public and private investment was made and innovative solutions pursued, the grades rose. Download the free app to learn more at www.infrastructurereportcard.org. **